When Liza and Jeremy run to their mother during a scary storm, she comforts them by telling them about the Invisible String, which connects people who love each other no matter where they are and means that they are never alone.

Sally Solari is busy juggling work at her family's Italian restaurant, Solari's, and helping Javier plan the autumn menu for the restaurant she's just inherited, Gauguin. Complicating this already hectic schedule, Sally joins her ex-boyfriend Eric's chorus, which is performing a newly discovered version of her favorite composition: the Mozart Requiem. But then, at the first rehearsal, a tenor falls to his death on the church courtyard-and his soprano...

It's Indian summer in Santa Cruz and restaurateur Sally Solari decides an open-air painting class is the perfect way for her to learn more about Paul Gaugin, the inspiration for her family's newest restaurant. But the beauty of the Monterey Bay coastline is shattered when Sally's dog Buster sniffs out a corpse tangled up in kelp.

It's the height of the tourist season in Santa Cruz, California, and Sally Solari has her hands full, both juggling crowds of hungry diners at her French-Polynesian restaurant Gauguin, as well as appeasing her father, who's distressed at the number of homeless people camped out in front of Solari's, the family's Italian seafood restaurant out on the historic fisherman's wharf. Nevertheless, when Sally gets the opportunity to volunteer at a farm-to-table...

"Shout it from the mountaintops! Every one of us is connected to those we love by Invisible Strings. And since all of those people are connected to countless other people, ultimately we are all connected by love…in a universal Invisible Web. It breathes as we breathe, pulsating over the Earth, the single heartbeat of life."--Book jacket flap.

"Ruby's got a problem. At school and at home, everyone is so busy all the time, and no one seems to notice her at all. Ruby finds herself feeling kind of...lonely. It's a big problem! But one day, while walking home alone after school, she decides to look at her problem from a new angle. She even gives it a name--Lonely--a seemingly small but significant decision that transforms her problem, and entire life, in the most surprising and extraordinary...

"Developed by literacy experts for students in grades three through seven, this book introduces young readers to the geography and culture of Belgium"--Provided by publisher.